Every time I hear an interview with or about Thomas, I respect him less. Bush Sr.'s term seems like a golden era in contrast to GW's, but we'll always have Sr. to thank for putting this angry, petty, extremist, and unfortunately young, poison in our Supreme Court. Everything the Bushes touch doesn't just turn to shit, it turns to shit for a generation.

It's easy to see why Thomas is a conservative though; they're all motivated by trying to relieve personal resentment through political retribution.

Clarence Thomas is not at all the sort of guy I like having on the Supreme Court, but at times he does take an extra ration of shit for being a black reactionary with a chip on his shoulder, and that's wrong. Black people have just as much right to be assholes as anyone else.

7: People of all races have the right to be assholes, without reference to their specific colour. The reason Thomas gets shit because he's black is that he's entirely dependent on affirmative action for most of the good things that happened to him in life, yet once on the bench he has shit all over affirmative action and otherwise acted like his stage in life in entirely the product of his own accomplishment.

It isn't.

He was a middling student, and a mediocre legal mind, who was nominated to replace Thurgood Marshall (oh, the indignity of the comparison!), solely because he was black. Actually, because he was a black and conservative.

There's a special problem with hostile tokenism that makes Thomas fair game, I think.

I think that some liberals give/gave Condi Rice and Colin Powell a little slack for this reason. Sometimes I thinl that they were chosen specifically for this purpose -- inhibiting the opposition reaction ever so slightly.

The irony is, I seem to remember reading that for all Thomas' faults, he's more principled (whatever that really means) than the other right-wingers on the court. I mean, Scalia will supposedly find a justification for something a Republican wants no matter how much it apparently conflicts with his stated judicial philosophy, but Thomas is pretty faithful to that same messed-up ad hoc reactionary philosophy, even if in this one case it cuts against the party. I'm too lazy to try to find the reference tonight, but do any of the more legally-minded people around here know what I'm referring to?

The reason Thomas gets shit because he's black is that he's entirely dependent on affirmative action for most of the good things that happened to him in life, yet once on the bench he has shit all over affirmative action and otherwise acted like his stage in life in entirely the product of his own accomplishment.

Except that people don't generally have the same sort of visceral loathing for successful white guys who play down the privilege and luck that helped get them where they are. Calling him on his hypocrisy is well and good, and he really is an asshole, but assholes in the upper reaches of Republican politics are a dime a dozen. He's nothing special.

13: It's a fair characterization. Scalia is very sharp, but pretty much entirely result driven -- his judicial philosophy is bullshit, to the extent that he will always find a way to come out in line with his politics. (On a case where he doesn't have a political axe to grind, he's a fine justice.)

Thomas has a real, albeit lunatic, judicial philosophy that determines most of his votes. He's result-driven as well sometimes, (Bush v. Gore, all the 11th amendment weirdness) but much less so than Scalia.

Respondent's local cultivation and consumption of marijuana is not "Commerce ... among the several States.

Certainly no evidence from the founding suggests that "commerce" included the mere possession of a good or some personal activity that did not involve trade or exchange for value. In the early days of the Republic, it would have been unthinkable that Congress could prohibit the local cultivation, possession, and consumption of marijuana.

Scalia has also gotten smugger and lazier as he's been on the Court longer, I think. I haven't read enough recent opinions to be sure, but the ones I have read have often contained a lot more handwaving and rhetorical dodginess than what I remember of his earlier stuff.

Except that people don't generally have the same sort of visceral loathing for successful white guys who play down the privilege and luck that helped get them where they are.

And if anyone suggests that a black person in a high position is can be assumed to be incompetent and only got to where they are because of affirmative action, or even that one of the problems with affirmative action is that it will lead people to suggest this, they get shouted down as racist and uncaring. Unless the black man is a Republican, in which case he's hyporcritical for not acknowledging the help.

Not to say that Thomas didn't get where he was solely because of affirmative action. He very well may have; I just don't know.

But telling someone who has opposed affirmative action at least in part due to the "but it will make people assume that successful blacks don't deserve it" to be told on the one hand that he's a bad person for taking this position, and at the same time that he doesn't deserve his success and only got it because of affirmative action is likely to make them bitter.

18: Nope. The universe of people capable of performing well in high positions is much larger than the number of high positions to be filled, and there is no Magical Merit Meter to decide who gets which slot. The affirmative action hire, the third-generation Harvard grad, the smalltown kid who lucked into a few good teachers and a couple of scholarships...any of them may turn out to be a great Supreme Court justice, or a lousy one.

It's a special kind of affirmative action, because it isn't that he's black. He would never have been appointed to the USOC if he was a brilliant black jurist in the mold of Thurgood Marshall. It's that he's black and conservative. The supreme irony is that he's exactly the kind of token appointment (don't forget this was Marshall's seat) that the right would otherwise excoriate.

It isn't that he's more principled and less results oriented. He gets the results he wants by invoking the same purported judicial philosophy. But in order to get the results he wants, and to shoehorn it into his "originalist" philosophy, he has to stretch originalism beyond recognition.

A good example is the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case, where Thomas approves of an originalist viewpoint to find against the plaintiff: a truly originalist viewpoint has no application here, since there were no public schools at the time of the founding fathers (therefore, there can be no invocation of an original intent to have less free speech in schools than elsewhere).

But telling someone who has opposed affirmative action at least in part due to the "but it will make people assume that successful blacks don't deserve it" to be told on the one hand that he's a bad person for taking this position, and at the same time that he doesn't deserve his success and only got it because of affirmative action is likely to make them bitter

And pretending that a white guy with Clarence Thomas's background would have been a plausible Supreme Court nominee is just silly. That doesn't make him incompetent or unqualified--he holds his own intellectually just fine, aside from being kind of batshit crazy and all--but a 43-year-old archconservative black lawyer was pure gold when it came time for Reagan to appoint someone for Marshall's seat, and a decent respect for reality ought to compel him to recognize that.

A good example is the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case, where Thomas approves of an originalist viewpoint to find against the plaintiff: a truly originalist viewpoint has no application here, since there were no public schools at the time of the founding fathers (therefore, there can be no invocation of an original intent to have less free speech in schools than elsewhere).

I don't think his analysis works either, but there's more principle involved in holding, as Thomas would, that public school students don't have free speech rights than in the majority's bullshit pretending to follow precedent and uphold free speech rights while still ruling against the student because drugs are really bad.

I wouldn't know a well written, intellectually honest legal opinion if one bit my on the butt, but being against affirmative action or anything that is meant to guarantee the equality of outcomes as oppossed to opportunity is a crock. Let me stipulate than seperate but equal was never equal to begin with, and that there are structural hurdles to overcome, but bussing has been a disaster for public schools nationwide, and has ruined many school districts that were previously OK. It has taken 50 years for this pig to work its way through the system and the result is shit.
There is both residual racism (Jena, anyone?- that happened in a desegregated school), but a lot of hope for progress ( witness countless teens who, while aware of race, think it is less of an issue).
I don't have a policy answer, that's not my job. But opposition to reverse discrimination does not make one a racist.

Yesterday, Diane Rehm had two Thomas experts on. What struck me was their insistence on how angry Thomas is—angry at Democrats, at the so-called liberal media, angry about Anita Hill (Thomas' wife has even demanded an apology from Hill).

I can't imagine waking up everyday that angry, but apparently Thomas does.

(And by the way, I lean toward thinking Thomas was right on the merits of the Bong Hits for Jesus case, even if I don't buy his analysis. I don't think the Constitution of the United States needs to be read to protect high school students' right to mouth off or to prohibit principals from being stupid.)

Well this is a bit of a strawman, since nobody has suggested this to date.

But in any event, the intellectual dishonesty re: Thomas is that he clearly has benefited, throughout his life from affirmative action. He wouldn't be on the USOC, he wouldn't be a judge, he wouldn't be a lawyer, he wouldn't have gotten into law school. Now, this doesn't prevent him from being against affirmative action - if he were truly honest, he could use himself as an example of its pernicious effects. But Thomas is against affirmative action, and refuses to recognize the instrumental role it has played in getting him to where he is.

I love that example. I will use Judge Thomas as a shining example of why affirmative action has at least unintended consequences. I concur that while not exactly tokens, Thomas, Rice and Powell check off a lot of boxes for those worried about diversity. My first wife went to a women's college (don't you dare call it a girl school) and was on the search commitee for the new president. Unspoken but determined effort to find the best woman for the job as opposed to the best candidate. I don't know that one could call it progress to have assigned seats on the SCOTUS, and Janice Brown is still out there, waiting to check off two more boxes.

Properly implemented, affirmative action is not reverse discrimination (although this is brilliant framing by the right). Instead, it forces schools and employers to seek out talented minorities - not just minorities - in order to ensure that they are adequately represented. This shouldn't mean hiring underqualified people, unless you are being lazy about it.

This is why Thomas' appointment should be offensive to both right and left alike. He was appointed to the USOC solely because he was black (and conservative). If he had been white with those same middling credentials, no matter how rabidly conservative he was, he would not have been appointed (actually, it is more appropriate to say he would not have been considered).

True believers of affirmative action should equally be appalled. It's one thing to say the USOC should have a black member to reflect the reality of US demography. Having decided that, you can find lots of well qualified minority candidates, if you choose to look for them. Clarence Thomas is just not one of those candidates.

Discriminating against any candidate for a job, purchase, school spot or whatever is stupid on its own face because one needs to market to the universe of potential users, not just white guys who talk like me. I would agree that properly conduceted outreach programs to reach markets that are traditionally untapped is a net good, but people are lazy and the system devolves into quotas.

If he had been white with those same middling credentials, no matter how rabidly conservative he was, he would not have been appointed (actually, it is more appropriate to say he would not have been considered).

Well, there was the Harriet Miers appointment. And a non-trivial number of hacks and lightweights before her, many of whom were even confirmed. And the credentials thing has issues of its own. It would be nice to live in a world where everyone worked hard to find people who would be really, really good at jobs like Supreme Court justice, but I'd settle for something approximating equal opportunity for hacks of all races, creeds, and colors. By which standard Thomas is not the greatest of sins (that would be Scalia. Or maybe Roberts. Or Alito?).

being against affirmative action or anything that is meant to guarantee the equality of outcomes as oppossed to opportunity is a crock. Let me stipulate than seperate but equal was never equal to begin with, and that there are structural hurdles to overcome, but bussing has been a disaster for public schools nationwide, and has ruined many school districts that were previously OK.

And the problem with bussing (i.e., desegregation) is that white people reacted to it with white flight and started yanking funds from public schools. I was in those schools. I remember the white kids transferring to the other district in the droves. And I'm damn glad my parents refused to pull that shit.

What happened to public schools isn't the fault of affirmative action. It's the fault of white racism and the I'll-take-my-ball-and-go-home reaction to being told that they had to play fair.

Come on, tll, the choice isn't between 'affirmative action' and 'merit'; in colleges it's between 'affirmative action', 'kinda dumb but a good swimmer', 'from a under-represented town/region of the country', 'poor but bright', and 'kinda dumb but his family bought us a building.'

people are lazy and the any system devolves into quotas hiring the easiest plausible candidate (who often happens to look a fair bit like the person doing the hiring, absent policies that make it implausible to only hire people who look like you)

If the outcome is the number of college admits, then AA is discriminatory. If the opportunity is going to college, then AA is the means to that goal for certain people. Not everyone can go to Harvard, nor should they. But the fact of the matter is that many qualified candidates are turned away, while those who are less qualified aren't for racial (and other) reasons.

Jesus. Brad DeLong is close to banning the Republican Party. I want to take away their votes, their childrens votes and right to go college. I want to discriminate them out of existence. I am willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal.

Unspoken but determined effort to find the best woman for the job as opposed to the best candidate.

Right, as opposed to the standard operating procedure, which is to find the best man for the job as opposed to the best candidate.

Look, there is plenty of research showing that if people do not *consciously* try to compensate for existing bias, they will *unconsciously* attribute greater competence to men. (And white people.) It's been shown over and over again. Making a point of saying "we are looking for good black or women or Indian or Latino or disabled candidates" is *not* discriminatory.

Not to make this a polemic on race, but the comprimise to allow the southern states their "peculiar institution" was the original sin of the Founding (that, and slaughtering the aborigenes who got in the way). The intellectual and moral underpinings that had to be devised to make that decision rational with the Founding Principles are some pretty good mental gymnastics. We are still paying for those underpinings today over 150 years after emancipation and 50 years after the Civil Rights movement. It will probably take alot longer, if it can ever be normalized. And calling Justice Thomas a dumbass as oppossed to an uppity black dumbass is a step in the right direction.

Excuse my bad mood, but I spent a long time last might reading a Neiwert post on Sundown Towns.

I grew up in one. Ten miles away was the city that was 40% black, but my good-sized factory town had 2 Jewish families and zero blacks. For the thirty years I lived there. I didn't quite realize it til my late teens, tho the racism was everywhere.

Do you know what percentage of a typical Ivy's undergraduate class are the children of alums?

The single greatest determinate of success in school is having two college educated parents. I put it to you that a majority of admits to the Ivies have this advantage, which would include children of alumni. But as a private institution that relies on a certain extent to alumni donations, legacy admits make sense.

Cracking open the doors to the power structures that have evolved is necessarily going to involve breaking somebody's rice bowl. I just think we need to admit that it is discrimination.

I'm fine with acknowledging unearned advantage if that is all that occurs, and trying to compensate for it. But saying that someone is a racist for not wanting to give up that advantage is a bit much. I'm pretty sure that my Klan membership expired a few years ago.

If you believe that all the stuff that helps out white guys is just the way the world is but intentionally favoring somebody for not being a white guy is discrimination, I kind of think the choices are "racist" or "clueless". And yeah, I was too quick to pick one. Comity?

2: don't involve me in your false doctrines. The comma, not the relative pronoun, does the work. "Jews who are quick to" is perfectly acceptable. It would have been incorrect to write "Jews, who are quick to,", but that's not what ogged wrote.

"The Georgia-born Thomas also has chalked up his silence to his struggle as a teenager to master standard English after having grown up speaking Geechee, a kind of dialect that thrived among former slaves on the islands off the South Carolina, Georgia and Florida coasts."

The second sentence of 66, which is true, doesn't have much to do with the first sentence. "Discrimination" isn't the opposite of "merit-based selection". I don't know exactly what it is, and it may be one of those words that's taken on such an enormous load of connotation that it doesn't have much denotation left, but whatever it is, it's not that.

If a beneficiary of (upper) class, (white) race and (male) gender bias were to denounce the practice of giving rich honky guys a free pass, would anyone accuse him of hypocrisy? I wouldn't; such bias is so prevalent as to be almost self-evident. So how is Thomas's stance different? For one, though pro-minority bias (in hiring, admissions, etc . . .) is legislated, and thus undeniable, it is extremely arguable that this bias is outweighed by that bias it seeks to address. Thomas, however, might argue that discrimination, even pragmatic discrimination, is still wrong. Why could he not, in good faith, hold this position, even if wrong? This kind of thing tends to reduce to the concept of "solidarity", a problematic concept for the left. In some sense, Thomas is betraying the efforts of those who have worked to allow him the position he now holds. In another, Thomas never consented to those benefits, and cannot be held responsible for their implications. Like I said, it's tricky, and I'm sure smarter people than I have written many pages about this which I have not read. However, my uneducated opinion is that Thomas must be free to be as much of a prick as he likes, regardless of his race. Our nation is a multiethnic society and we must not allow a douche gap.

If a beneficiary of (upper) class, (white) race and (male) gender bias were to denounce the practice of giving rich honky guys a free pass, would anyone accuse him of hypocrisy? I wouldn't; such bias is so prevalent as to be almost self-evident. So how is Thomas's stance different?

Honestly, why is this so difficult to understand?

I don't know if Thomas is being accused of hypocrisy, so much as being criticized for being an obvious beneficiary of affirmative action, while professing *not* to have been a beneficiary of affirmative action (and also - or perhaps, therefore - opposing affirmative action).

It would be one thing for Thomas to acknowledge having benefited from affirmative action, yet be against it. At that point he might be a hypocrite, but at least he'd be honest.

Instead, this pompous ass has the temerity to suggest that at age 43, with a mediocre academic record, no published work - either professional or academic, no scholarship, no experience as an advocate in federal - let alone the Supreme, court, and a measly 1.5 years as a judge, (a record so unimpressive that the ABA not only refused to deem him "well qualified", but split on whether he was "not qualfied" or "qualified"), he was chosen for the highest honour that could be accorded a lawyer...and he was being asked to fill the shoes of a legal giant, Thurgood Marshall, up until then, the only black man ever to sit on the USOC...

and yet his being black had nothing to do with his appointment.

[Incidentally, I had a good laugh reading one of the nutbar bloggers who was invited to lunch with him. The new narrative is that it was entirely coincidental that he was picked to fill Marshall's spot; see, the original plan was to have him take Brennan's spot, but he left just a little too early, so that Thomas was just short of the seasoning needed to be on the USOC. Yeah, because the *only* thing that could have made Thomas less qualified is if he had even less experience as a sitting judge...]